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Copied from original ambrotype, owned by William H. Lambert, made at 
Springfield, Illinois, August IS, 1860. 



1809— 1909 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE 
THE UNION LEAGUE OF PHILADELPHIA 

BY 
WILLIAM H. LAMBERT 

February 12, 1909 



" Lincoln the Honest Man, Abolished Slavery, 

Reestablished the Union, Saved the Republic, 

Without Veiling the Statue of Liberty." 



From inscription on Gold Medal 
presented by Forty Thousand 
Frenchmen to the widow of 
Abraham Lincoln 



£"t 



57 
.8 



Bytransfw 
lliit© Housa. 



AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE 
THE UNION LEAGUE OF PHILADEL- 
PHIA, FRIDAY EVENING, FEBRUARY 
12TH, 1909. 




R. JAMES F. HOPE, President of The 
Union League, introduced the speaker of 
the evening, Major William H. Lambert, 
in the following language : 

Fellow Members: — I esteem it a great 
privilege to stand in this presence, and present to you a 
gentleman who needs no introduction to any gathering of 
Union League members, nor, in fact, to any audience in 
this city. He is a citizen of no mean city, — our own 
goodly Philadelphia; a member not only of this Club, 
but one who has sat in its councils and served it faithfully 
and ably for several years as an officer. 

And surely he deserves well of The Union League, 
as in his early life he exemplified in his own person the 
principles on which this League is founded, — love of 
country and aid in preserving the Union of the United 
States. Surely the man who offered himself for the 
cause, the man who enlisted as a private in 1862, served 
through the war with distinction and was mustered out 
as a Major in July, 1865, receiving a medal of honor for 
bravery on the field, should be and is an ideal member 
of this Union League, deservedly held in high esteem by 
his fellow members and is a bright example to the pres- 
ent and future members of this institution. 



We have one roll of honor in this Club — The Found- 
ers. They have all passed into the Beyond, but their 
work remains. What they did will be remembered while 
The Union League lasts. 

I feel we should have another roll of honor; one on 
which should be inscribed the names of all those mem- 
bers of the Club who, like our honored guest, served 
their country at the time of its greatest need. If these 
rolls should be cast in enduring brass or bronze and hung 
upon the walls of the new building we are about to erect, 
the walls could have no better decoration, and they would 
be an object lesson to the membership and serve to stim- 
ulate and to keep alive the principles on which The Union 
League of Philadelphia was founded. 

The shadows lengthen to the west in the lives of the 
men who took an active part, and bore the brunt and 
heat of the battle in those bitter days of terrible strife — 
day by day their numbers lessen, and the time is not far 
distant when the last of the veterans will have said 
ADSUM to the last roll call. It would seem only fitting 
then that we should have some such memorial — Lest we 
forget. It is well to think of these things at times and 
ponder them in our hearts, for as a man thinketh in his 
heart so is he. 

I am not one of those, however, who thinks that The 
Union League lives altogether in the past. It cost more 
of unselfish devotion, more of self-sacrifice to be a member 
in the early days than it does now. Republicanism did not 
walk in silver slippers, and Union League principles were 
not particularly popular; but I believe we have a heritage, 
and that there is an abundance of latent patriotic impulse 
in this body that requires but the spark of necessity to 

2 



break into flame, and burn as bright and clear as in the 
olden days; and that if the exigency arose and this coun- 
try called for aid, this Union League would respond just 
as promptly, just as patriotically as it did in the sixties; 
and should there be a call to arms to protect our country 
against foreign or domestic foes, hundreds of its mem- 
bers and thousands of other young men in this community, 
fired and inspired with the patriotic ardor of The Union 
League, would respond as enthusiastically and as loyally 
as they did in the early days, and they would come shout- 
ing some such battle-cry as of old, " We are coming, 
Father Abraham, 300,000 more." 

And now, gentlemen, I have great pleasure in present- 
ing to you the orator of the evening, the brave soldier, the 
honored member of The Union League, the good citizen, 
the amiable and capable gentleman, Major William H. 
Lambert, who will address us on the subject of " Reminis- 
cences of Abraham Lincoln." 




Major William H. Lambert, delivered the following 

address. 

MONG the many associations that are met 
to commemorate the Centennial Anniver- 
sary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln 
there is none that can rejoice in the honor 
done his name with greater fitness than The 
Union League of Philadelphia. 

The Union League owes its being to the earnest pur- 
pose to uphold his hands; of it he was an Honorary Mem- 
ber and in acknowledging his election as such he wrote 
" the generous approval of a portion of my fellow citizens 
so intelligent and patriotic as those comprising your asso- 
ciation assures me that I have not wholly failed." 

Among the founders of the League were men who had 
early advocated his nomination for the Presidency, stren- 
uously worked for his election and heartily approved his 
administration, and when they united to form this organi- 
zation they enrolled men of like sympathy and purpose, 
and The Union League became the prototype of many 
clubs emulous of its example. The League did not confine 
itself to mere verbal expressions of approbation, valua- 
ble and important as such evidences of sympathy and loy- 
alty were, but it engaged actively and successfully in re- 
cruiting for the army, and, participating vigorously in 
the campaign for his renomination and re-election, was 



powerfully effective in securing the triumph at the ballot 
which ensured final victory in the field. Having stead- 
fastly and energetically supported the great President, The 
Union League of right joins the chorus of thanksgiving 
and praise for the life, the character and the work of 
Abraham Lincoln. 

United with the thousands who to-day commemorate 
the centenary of his birth, recalling all that we have heard 
and read concerning him, especially the many incidents 
of his life that for months preparatory to this day have 
been narrated in our newspapers and magazines, remem- 
bering how he shaped our history and enriched our lit- 
erature, it is hard to realize how little known he was to 
the country at large prior to the assembling of the con- 
vention that nominated him for the Presidency. 

He had served a single term in the National House of 
Representatives, he had been an unsuccessful candidate 
for the United States Senate in 1855, in the next year 
his name had been presented to the first National Con- 
vention of the Republican party as a candidate for the 
Vice-Presidency; again placed in nomination by his party 
for the Senate, he engaged with Stephen A. Douglas in 
a political debate the most memorable in our history out- 
side the halls of Congress, and as a result of this debate 
he secured a majority of the popular vote of the State 
for the Republican candidates for the Legislature, but as 
the majority of the legislators chosen was for Douglas, 
Lincoln was a second time defeated in his aspiration for 
the Senate. The fame of the debate led a club of young 
men in the city of New York to invite Mr. Lincoln to 
lecture, and in compliance he made a remarkable address 
at the Cooper Institute, in the presence of a large audi- 

5 



ence comprising some of the foremost members of the 
Republican party; because of this address he was re- 
quested to deliver a series of speeches in the New Eng- 
land States. These speeches in New York and the East 
attracted the attention of men influential in the councils 
of the party, who, opposed to the more prominent candi- 
dates for the Presidential nomination, were seeking a can- 
didate who in their judgment would be more likely to be 
elected. 

Consideration of Lincoln's availability, the importunity 
of the Republican candidates for Governor in Pennsyl- 
vania and Indiana, both " October States " and suppos- 
edly doubtful, local antagonism to Seward and to Chase, 
and the intense earnestness of Lincoln's friends in Illinois 
and adjacent States co-operated to secure for him the nom- 
ination. 

Seemingly Lincoln had made so little impression upon 
the people at large, that conservatives who deprecated 
the radical phrase of the " Irrepressible Conflict " and 
feared its effect upon voters had apparently forgotten, if 
indeed they had known, that months before Seward had 
pronounced these objectionable words, Lincoln had de- 
clared "A house divided against itself cannot stand; I 
believe this government cannot endure permanently half 
slave and half free." 

Despite efforts that have been made to controvert the 
statement, the truth is that for the moment the supreme 
fact of the Chicago Convention of i860 " was the defeat 
of Seward rather than the nomination of Lincoln. It 
was the triumph of a presumption of availability over 
pre-eminence in intellect and unrivalled fame." 

Elected to the Presidency by a minority of the popular 

6 



vote, his election followed by the threatened withdrawal 
of several States, the successful candidate might well be 
awed by the stupendous responsibility that awaited him. 
The months of suspense between his election and his in- 
auguration were fraught with intense anxiety. In the 
hope of averting the threatened calamity many public 
meetings urged compromise and favored liberal conces- 
sions. Reaction appeared to be setting in and many who 
had helped to elect him seemed to regret their success; 
but whoever else was shaken, Lincoln was not, and to his 
intimate friends gave assurance of his firm adherence to 
the principles that had triumphed in his election. 

In letters to Senator Trumbull Lincoln wrote, " Let 
there be no compromise on the question of extending slav- 
ery — if there be all our labor is lost, and ere long must 
be done again. * * * Stand firm. The tug has to 
come and better now than any time hereafter." 

"If any of our friends do prove false, and fix up a com- 
promise on the territorial question, I am for fighting 
again, that is all." "If it prove true (report that the 
forts in South Carolina will be surrendered by the consent 
of President Buchanan), I will, if our friends at Wash- 
ington concur, announce publicly at once that they are to 
be retaken after the inauguration. This will give the 
Union men a rallying cry and preparations will proceed 
somewhat on this side as well as on the other." * 

Meanwhile he steadily refrained from public utterance 
until he set forth from the home to which he was never 
to return alive. His touching farewell to his Spring- 
field neighbors and the series of addresses in reply to 
greetings from the several communities through which he 

* These passages were read from the original autograph letters. 

7 



passed on his journey to the National Capital plainly 
showed that he appreciated the weight of the burden he 
was about to assume and so far encouraged the party that 
had elected him, but gave little evidence of special fit- 
ness for the work. In the light of after events, the asser- 
tion which he made in Independence Hall, that rather 
than surrender the principles which had been declared 
there he would be assassinated on the spot, is pre-eminent 
as an indication of the source and the courage of his po- 
litical convictions, while the fact that at the time of its ut- 
terance, he had been warned of a conspiracy to kill him, 
removes from these words any suspicion that they were 
spoken for rhetorical effect, and invests them with the 
solemnity of prophecy. The inaugural address of the new 
President was awaited with painful solicitude. Appre- 
hension that, in the hope of averting disaster, he might 
yield somewhat of the principles upon which he had been 
elected; fear that, in retaliation for threats of disunion, 
he might determine upon desperate assault on the rights 
of the revolted and threatening States; mistrust that he 
might prove unequal to the Nation's supreme exigency, 
combined to intensify anxiety. 

The address failed to satisfy extremists either North 
or South, but the great body of loyal people were de- 
lighted with the manifest determination of the President 
to preserve, protect and defend the government he had 
sworn to uphold. But his solemn assurances that he 
would in no wise endanger the property, peace and secur- 
ity of any section of the country; that it was his purpose 
to administer the government as it had come to him, and 
to transmit it unimpaired by any act of his to his succes- 
sor; and his appeal to the memories of the past, and to 

8 



the common interests of the present, were alike powerless 
to recall the revolted States to their allegiance or to re- 
strain the action of other States, bent on following their 
example. 

Anticipating the inauguration of President Lincoln, the 
Southern Confederacy had been proclaimed, and its troops 
were arrayed against the authority of the United States, 
while the absence of efforts of repression seemed to indi- 
cate that the dissolution of the Union, so arrogantly de- 
clared by the States in rebellion, was to be accomplished. 

For weeks succeeding his inauguration, the President 
awaited the progress of events, — the policy of laissez- 
faire seemed to have been adopted. Some tentative ef- 
forts were made to relieve the beleaguered forts within the 
limits of the insurgent territory, but apparently the Na- 
tion was drifting to death. 

But the shot on Sumter wrought instant and wondrous 
change. However uncertain Abraham Lincoln may have 
been as to the method of maintaining the Union, his pur- 
pose to maintain it had been positively declared; and from 
the moment the flag was fired upon the method was no 
longer in doubt. The call of April 15, 1861, was the an- 
swer to the challenge of Charleston Harbor. We know 
now that the number of men called forth was utterly 
inadequate to the work to be done, but the value of the 
call was less in the number of men it evoked than in the as- 
sertion that armed rebellion was to be confronted, and the 
power of the Nation was to be put forth for its own 
preservation, and the enforcement of the laws. 

Previous to his entrance upon the Presidency, Mr. Lin- 
coln had had no part in the administration of great af- 
fairs; he was destitute of experience in statecraft and he 

9 



had no precedent either in our own history or in that of 
other lands to guide him. He had called to his Cabinet 
the chief of the leaders of the Republican party, men 
whose great experience in public affairs and whose ad- 
mitted ability and acquirements justified their selection 
and might well indeed have induced him to submit to their 
direction, But he realized that as President he could not, 
even if he would, transfer the obligation of his office. 
Whatever doubts may have existed in the minds of his ad- 
visers as to his purpose and fitness to accept the responsi- 
bilities of his office were soon dispelled and it is evident 
that the President dominated his administration from the 
beginning when in reply to the Secretary of State, who 
had advised a radical and startling change in the govern- 
mental policy and had expressed his willingness to un- 
dertake its direction, Lincoln declared, "If this must be 
done, I must do it;" to the close when he notified the 
Lieutenant General " you are not to decide, discuss or 
confer upon any political questions. Such questions the 
President holds in his own hands, and will submit them to 
no military conferences or conventions." 

In this connection and as confirmatory of the Presi- 
dent's control of affairs, the recently published letter of 
his private secretary, John Hay, is particularly interest- 
ing as showing the impression made upon a qualified ob- 
server, and recorded at the time. Writing at Washing- 
ton under date August 7, 1863, to his fellow secretary, 
Nicolay, Hay said: "The Tycoon is in fine whack. I 
have rarely seen him more serene and busy. He is man- 
aging this war, the draft, foreign relations and planning 
a reconstruction of the Union all at once. I never knew 
with what tyrannous authority he rules the Cabinet until 

10 



now. The most important things he decided and there 
is no cavil." 

The outbreak of hostilities presented to President Lin- 
coln an opportunity not of his seeking, but of which he 
might well avail himself. However specious the plea of 
State rights, however disguised the chief motive which 
prompted the secession of the revolting States, he knew, 
as the people knew, that slavery was the real cause of the 
Rebellion. He had long foreseen that the country could 
not permanently endure partially slave, partially free; he 
knew that slavery had been the basis of the controversies 
and dangers of the past. If tradition may be believed, in 
his early manhood he had declared that if ever he should 
have a chance, he would hit slavery hard, and now the 
chance had come. In 1837, with one other member of 
the Illinois Legislature, he had placed himself on record 
declaring his belief " that the institution of slavery is 
founded on both injustice and bad policy " and protest- 
ing against the passage of resolutions favoring it. Slav- 
ery was attempting the destruction of the Republic, and, 
by its own appeal to arms, was offering an opportunity for 
a counter-blow, which might forever destroy an institution 
whose malign influence had long controlled national af- 
fairs, and endangered the perpetuity of the Nation. He 
was President and Commander-in-chief; in the party that 
had elected him were many thousands anxious for the 
proclamation of freedom to the slave and insistent upon 
its issue. He had been the nominee of a party, but he 
was now the President of the United States, and neither 
hope of partisan gain nor personal gratification could 
swerve him from what he conceived to be the obligation 
of his oath. His conception of his duty was forcibly ex- 

11 



pressed in his letter to Horace Greeley, probably the most 
important of the many notable letters written by the Pres- 
ident. Replying to the Editor's article accusing him of 
failure to meet the rightful expectations of 20,000,000 
of the loyal people, Mr. Lincoln wrote from Washington 
under date of August 22, 1862 : 

" I have just read yours of the 19th, addressed to my- 
self through the 'New York Tribune.' If there be in it 
any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know 
to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. 
If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to 
be falsely drawn, I do not, now and here, argue against 
them. If there be perceptible in it an impatient and dic- 
tatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, 
whose heart I have always supposed to be right. 

" As to the policy I ' seem to be pursuing,' as you say, 
I have not meant to leave any one in doubt. I would 
save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under 
the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can 
be restored, the nearer the Union will be ' the Union as 
it was.' If there be those who would not save the Union 
unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do 
not agree with them. If there be those who would not 
save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy 
slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount 
object in this struggle is to save the Union, and 
is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I 
could save the Union without freeing any slave, I 
would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all 
the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by 
freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do 
that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I 

12 



do because I believe it helps to save the Union ; and what 
I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help 
to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall be- 
lieve what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more 
whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. 
I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors, and 
I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be 
true views. 

" I have here stated my purpose according to my view 
of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft- 
expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could 
be free." 

Twenty months later in a letter to a citizen of Ken- 
tucky, in answer to his request for a statement of what had 
been said to the Governor of that State, the President 
wrote: " I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not 
wrong, nothing is wrong. I cannot remember when I 
did not so think and feel, and yet I have never understood 
that the Presidency conferred upon me an unrestricted 
right to act officially upon this judgment and feeling. It 
was in the oath I took that I would to the best of 
my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution 
of the United States. I could not take the office without 
taking the oath. Nor was it my view that I might take 
an oath to get power, and break the oath in using 
the power. I understood, too, that in ordinary civil ad- 
ministration this oath even forbade me to practically in- 
dulge my primary abstract judgment on the moral ques- 
tion of slavery. * * * And I aver that, to this day, 
I have done no official act in mere deference to my ab- 
stract judgment and feeling on slavery." 

With clear view, and steadfast purpose, President Lin- 

13 



coin devoted his life to the preservation of the Union. 
To accomplish this end, in the spirit of the great Apostle 
to the Gentiles he made himself servant unto all that he 
might gain the more. Subordinating self, personal preju- 
dices and partisan feelings were not allowed to obtrude 
between him and his conception of the country's need. 
Ability to serve the cause was the essential qualification 
for high office and honor, and outweighing other consid- 
erations, atoned for past or present personal objection. 

Early in 1862 he appointed as chief of the War De- 
partment a man of boundless zeal and energy, who had 
treated Mr. Lincoln with marked discourtesy, had de- 
nounced his conduct of the war, and had freely expressed 
dislike for him and doubt of his fitness, an appointment 
as sagacious and fortunate as it was magnanimous; and 
he retained in his Cabinet the Secretary of the Treasury, 
whose own aspirations for the Presidential nomination 
were well known to Mr. Lincoln, who wrote : " Whether 
you shall remain at the head of the Treasury Depart- 
ment is a question which I will not allow myself to con- 
sider from any standpoint other than my judgment of the 
public service, and, in that view, I do not perceive occa- 
sion for a change." 

The War of 1 861-5 was no mere factional contest. It 
was a people's war, begun by a people jealous of its insti- 
tutions, fearful of the wane of the power it had long 
wielded, distrustful of the new administration's assur- 
ances of non-intervention with the rights of States, and 
conscious that the limitation of slavery to the territory 
that it now occupied must eventually effect its extinction. 
The war was accepted by a people innocent of purpose 
to interfere with the " domestic institution " within State 

14 



lines, and far from united in opinion about slavery, and 
though substantially opposed to its extension over the coun- 
try's free domain, not agreed as to the best method of 
legislative treatment; but one absolutely in love for the 
Union and determination to maintain it. " One would 
make war rather than let the Nation survive, and the 
other would accept war rather than let it perish. And 
the war came." 

Only the enlistment of the people on each of the con- 
tending sides could have sustained so long a war of such 
magnitude, and offered such heroic devotion as distin- 
guished it. The President realized that his ability to 
make effective his oath to preserve the Government was 
dependent upon the firm and continued support of the 
loyal people, that he could lead them no faster and no 
further than they would follow, and that it was abso- 
lutely necessary to retain their confidence. His faith in 
the principles of the Declaration of Independence, his 
conviction that the people were the rightful source of all 
governmental power, had suffered no change by his ele- 
vation to the Presidency; in an especial sense a man of 
the people, the restraint which kept him closely in touch 
with them was not unwillingly borne, but readily ac- 
cepted as the condition under which he best could act with 
and for them. 

The acquisition of vast power, increasing with the 
prolongation of the war, made no change in the simplicity 
of his character. Unhampered by conventionalities, in- 
different to forms, he received his old-time friends with 
the freedom of their earlier intercourse, and was accessi- 
ble to all who sought him. No visitor was too humble 
for his consideration, and if, in too many instances, the 

15 



causes which received his attention were too trivial to 
engage the thought of the Chief Magistrate of a great 
nation in its time of stress, the very fact of his willingness 
to see and hear all endeared him to the people, who saw 
in him one of themselves, unspoiled by power, unharmed 
by success. 

As no President before him had done, he confided in 
the people; and in a series of remarkable letters and 
speeches, explained or justified his more important acts by 
arguments of simplest form but marvelous strength. His 
frankness and directness of expression, his obvious sin- 
cerity and absolute patriotism, even, perhaps, as much 
as the force of his reasoning, compelled respect for his 
acts, and enlarged the number and increased the faith of 
his strenuous supporters. 

The sympathetic audience which he gave to every tale 
of woe, his manifest reluctance to inflict the extreme pen- 
alty which violation of military law entailed, seemed at 
times to detract from the dignity of his high office, and 
prompted commanding officers to complain that the 
proper maintenance of discipline was rendered impossi- 
ble by Mr. Lincoln's sensibility; but these characteristics 
strengthened his hold upon the people at home and in the 
army. In his profound sympathy, in his splendid cour- 
age, in his transparent honesty, in his patriotic devotion, 
in his simplicity of thought and manner, nay, in the very 
haggardness of feature, ungainliness of form, and home- 
liness of attire, he was the expression of a plain people's 
hopes, and the embodiment of their cause. 

Here was neither Caesar nor Napoleon, but a popular 
leader such as befitted a Republic destined to preserve its 
popular form, though its ruler wielded imperial power; a 

16 



leader whose highest ambition was to save the country 
and to transmit the government unimpaired to his suc- 
cessor. 

Generals intoxicated with power and anticipations of 
success, might assert the country's need of a dictator and, 
apparently, be not unwilling to assume the role, but the 
President, without shadow of jealousy of any of his sub- 
ordinates, shrewdly declared, " Only those generals who 
gain success can set up dictators. What I ask of you is 
military success; I will risk the dictatorship." 

The splendid manifestation of popular feeling which 
followed the assault upon Sumter might easily have 
caused the President to rely confidently upon popular 
support in his every effort to suppress the Rebellion; the 
generous response to his early calls for troops might 
readily have assured him that the number of volunteers 
would exceed all needs, and have led him to expect the 
speedy end of the war; but he was not deluded by the 
hope that the war would be of short duration; he saw the 
necessity of preparation for a long struggle, and felt the 
importance of conserving all interests, and of securing the 
support of all who, however they may have differed in 
other respects, agreed in devotion to the Union. Hence 
he made concessions to the opinions of those who, while 
opposed to disunion, did not sympathize with his own 
views concerning slavery and its extension. " How a 
free people" would "conduct a long war " was a problem 
to be demonstrated, and President Lincoln was unwilling 
to alienate any who were faithful to the Government, even 
though they deprecated the occasion which had placed it in 
jeopardy. His sagacity and his observation had shown 
him how wavering were the currents of popular opinion, 

17 



how readily popular enthusiasm could be quenched by 
disappointment and defeat, and how imperative it was for 
him to hold together all elements requisite to the success- 
ful prosecution of the war. 

Disappointed friends might inveigh against his caution 
and demand dismissal of leaders and change of policy, 
lukewarm supporters might withdraw their confidence, 
supersensitive observers might denounce heroic war meas- 
ures as invasions of personal or State rights, but, despite 
harassment and annoyance and antagonism, unshaken in 
purpose, indomitable in courage, the President moved 
steadily on. The defection of old friends and party as- 
sociates might grieve him, the unjust accusations of nom- 
inal Unionists might rankle, but he could not be deflected 
from the line of his duty. 

He knew that other than purely military considera- 
tions might rightfully determine campaigns, that success 
in the field, though conducive to success at home and to 
ultimate triumph, was not the only essential, and that to 
maintain the armies at the front it was imperative to sus- 
tain the sentiment of the people at home. From the 
broader outlook of the Capital, from his knowledge of 
the people directly and through their chosen representa- 
tives he appreciated, as the generals in the field could not, 
the indispensability of popular support as well as of mili- 
tary success. 

The President early gave evidence that he was willing 
to assume the gravest responsibilities by acts which he 
believed would conduce to the great end that he had in 
view. " I feel that measures otherwise unconstitutional 
might become lawful by becoming indispensable to the 
preservation of the Nation. Right or wrong, I assumed 

18 



this ground, and now avow it." Acting upon this theory, 
while he had abstained from striking at slavery as an evil 
in itself and in its results, yet when, by deliberate and 
painful consideration, he became convinced that the preser- 
vation of the Union demanded freedom for the slave, he 
determined upon emancipation so far as he could effect 
it consistently with his constitutional obligation and his 
military prerogative. We honor his memory because of 
the courage and the foresight which led him to this great 
and beneficent act, but we in no wise detract from his fame 
as the liberator of the slave when calling attention to the 
fact that uniformly he justified the act by its military 
necessity, and never because of its righteousness as the 
abolition of a great wrong. 

It is interesting to note the steps by which the Presi- 
dent reached his determination to proclaim emancipa- 
tion. He moved most cautiously and would not allow 
any of his subordinates to force his hand, or permit them 
a latitude he would not permit himself, hence when with 
impetuous and ill-judged zeal General Fremont, who in 
1856 was the first Republican nominee for the Presidency, 
issued a proclamation of freedom, Mr. Lincoln courte- 
ously but positively revoked it, an act which brought upon 
him the condemnation of many of his warmest friends, 
to one of whom, Senator Browning, he wrote a confiden- 
tial letter, dated Washington, September 22, 1861, from 
which I quote: 

11 General Fremont's proclamation as to confiscation of 
property and the liberation of slaves is purely political 
and not within the range of military law or necessity. If 
a commanding general finds a necessity to seize the farm 
of a private owner for a pasture, an encampment, or a 

19 



fortification, he has the right to do so, and to so hold it 
as long as the necessity lasts; and this is within military 
law, because within military necessity. But to say the 
farm shall no longer belong to the owner, or his heirs 
forever, and this as well when the farm is not needed 
for military purposes as when it is, is purely political, 
without the savor of military law about it. And the same 
is true of slaves. If the general needs them, he can seize 
them and use them ; but when the need is past, it is not for 
him to fix their permanent future condition. That must 
be settled according to laws made by law-makers, and not 
by military proclamations. The proclamation in the 
point in question is simply ' dictatorship.' It assumes 
that the general may do anything he pleases — confiscate 
the lands and free the slaves of loyal people, as well as 
of disloyal ones. And going the whole figure, I have no 
doubt, would be more popular with some thoughtless peo- 
ple than that which has been done ! But I cannot assume 
this reckless position, nor allow others to assume it on my 
responsibility. * * * I do not say Congress might not 
with propriety pass a law on the point, just such as Gen- 
eral Fremont proclaimed. I do not say I might not, as a 
member of Congress, vote for it. What I object to is, 
that I, as President, shall expressly or impliedly seize and 
exercise the permanent legislative functions of the Govern- 
ment." * 

Again, when later, General Hunter, unmindful of Fre- 
mont's experience, and confronted by peculiarly aggra- 
vating conditions in his Department of the South, issued 
a proclamation of emancipation, the President counter- 
manded the general's act, but in the order of revocation 

* These passages were read from the original autograph letter. 

20 



there was a distinct advance in the views expressed on the 
subject of emancipation as a military measure. Now, 
instead of doubting his own right as President, he de- 
clared " whether it be competent for me as Commander- 
in-chief of the Army and Navy to declare the slaves of 
any State or States free, and whether at any time, in any 
case it shall have become a necessity indispensable to the 
maintenance of the Government to exercise such a sup- 
posed power are questions which, under my responsibility, 
I reserve to myself and which I cannot feel justified in 
leaving to the decision of commanders in the field." 

The revocation of these attempts at emancipation 
evoked many indignant protests against the President's 
action, but they were ineffective to change it; but four 
months later, having decided that the time had come 
when the Nation's life demanded the emancipation of the 
slaves of rebel owners, on the 22nd of September, 1862, 
he announced his purpose to declare freedom to the slaves 
held by the people in rebellion, and on the first of January, 
1863, by virtue of his power as Commander-in-chief of 
the Army and Navy of the United States, as a fit and nec- 
essary war measure for the suppression of rebellion, he 
proclaimed emancipation to slaves within designated ter- 
ritory, invoking " upon this act, sincerely believed to be 
an act of justice, warranted by the Constitution upon mil- 
itary necessity, * * * the considerate judgment of 
mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God." 

Although the President had decided that emancipation 
was only justified as a war measure, he declared emphat- 
ically that he would not retract or modify the proclama- 
tion or return to slavery any person who had been freed 
by its terms or by any of the acts of Congress, and in his 

21 



last annual message he repeated that declaration and said: 
" If the people should, by whatever mode and means, 
make it an executive duty to re-enslave such persons, an- 
other and not I must be their instrument to perform it." 

Emancipation, which in its inception was necessarily 
limited and largely tentative, became by force of his ac- 
tion and by reason of his advocacy universal and perma- 
nent, for it was through his inspiration and because of 
his persistence that by legal procedure the war measure 
became a constitutional enactment and to the end of time 
Abraham Lincoln will be known as the Liberator of the 
Slave. 

The possession of imperial power, the accomplishment 
of complete victory, — saving the Union and securing its 
by-product, Emancipation, — the plaudits of exulting thou- 
sands, did not change the man, or tempt him to forego his 
allegiance to the Constitution, or to waver in his devotion 
to " the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence." No aspiration for perpetuity of power sep- 
arated him from the plain people upon whom he relied, 
from whose ranks he had come, to whom he expected to 
return, for it is his glory that he not only completed a 
great work, and guaranteed its beneficent and far-reaching 
consequences, " but," to quote the language of Carl 
Schurz, " that during the stormiest and most perilous 
crisis in our history, he so conducted the Government and 
so wielded his almost dictatorial power as to leave essen- 
tially intact our free institutions in all things that concern 
the rights and liberties of the citizen." 

From the highest reach that Lincoln had attained be- 
fore his accession to the Presidency to the zenith of his 
career, the space seems incalculable. The study of his 

22 



earlier life shows indeed that he possessed clearness of 
thought, remarkable gift of expression, native sagacity, 
honesty of purpose, and courage of conviction ; that he was 
devoted to the rights of man, and that he loved his coun- 
try; but that he possessed elements of greatness in such 
degree as the war revealed could not have been surmised 
from aught he had said or done. And that he should 
manifest so soon and so signally his ability to rule a great 
nation in the most dangerous period of its existence; that 
he should overtower his associates, and prove that more 
than they he was fitted to save the Government; that he 
could wield a power far greater than that of any of his 
predecessors and surpassing that exercised by any con- 
temporary ruler, king or emperor, could not have been 
foreseen by any lacking divine inspiration. Not by 
graded steps, but by giant stride, Lincoln reached the 
height of power, achievement and fame. True, the prog- 
ress of the war revealed growth in character, in thought 
and in force, and he stood much higher at its close than at 
its beginning; but at its opening it early became apparent 
that Providence had so shaped the country's destiny that 
the man who had been chosen mainly because of his avail- 
ability as a candidate was far and away the one man for 
the office and the work. 

In the metropolis of the State wherein most of Lin- 
coln's life was lived, on the shore of the great lake over 
which he had so often looked, at the entrance to the beau- 
tiful park that bears his name, stands his figure in bronze, 
in the attitude of speaking as he so often stood in life; his 
face is rugged and kindly; no toga drapes his gaunt form 
or hides his everyday garb; no scroll in his hand and no 
conventional column by his side detract from his homely 

23 



simplicity; no allegoric devices mar the harmonious real- 
ism; upon the flanks of the granite exedra that stretches 
around the pedestal, metal globes bear the words of his 
immortal utterances. This triumph of St. Gaudens's art 
marvellously portrays the ideal, that is no less the real, 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN — PRESERVER OF THE 
UNION — SAVIOR OF THE REPUBLIC. 



24 



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